Monday 14 September 2015

The Alejandro Lopez

In the course of being on a boat for a long time you come into contact with all sorts of people. In the case of Sea Wolf you come into contact with a lot of mechanics given the ‘defects’ we have been dealing with.

When we arrived at Shelter Bay Marina, close to the Panama Canal on the Caribbean side, we had a number of significant issues to address. The anchor windlass base-plate had completely corroded in the San Blas Islands, the consequence of it being 17 years old and in a location which is permanently being attacked by salt residue. Solution – remove the corroded plate and motor, find out the model number, order a new part and fit. All fairly straightforward bar the over promising and under delivering Fedex. Similarly a new relay was ordered for the bowthruster.

Then came the fridge/freezer system. I really will try and save you the tedious mechanics, but some description of this is necessary to understand the issue, and by extension the man for the job, Alejandro Lopez.

He came into my life on Sunday 31st May. It was good of him to come on a Sunday, especially as he lives in Panama City, at least 90 minutes away by car. A short man in his mid-thirties, slightly rotund, well groomed black hair and the arrogant swagger of someone confident of fixing your mechanical problems. He drove a Volvo and wore Ray Ban’s, somewhat exotic in Panama which gave further lustre to his capability. Just the person I needed I thought.

I explained the problem, that the engine driven (DC) fridge/freezer wasn’t working, but that the independent AC system was (powered by either shore power or the generator). He wasted no time in squeezing into the engine bay and confirming what we already knew, that there was no power coming from the magnetic clutch. Alejandro quickly suggested he remove the clutch, try to get a new one in Panama City, though failing that re-wire the existing one and reassemble. Just the sort of can-do attitude I was looking for.
He talked a lot, and as I’d been on my own on the boat for a couple of weeks I enjoyed asking the kind of open questions, whilst handing him spanners, that gave him the room to express himself. And express himself he did.  

Half Costa Rican half Panamanian, he had strong views on the full hand-over of the Canal in 2000 by the US, believing it to be a big mistake to lose the presence of so many Americans in the country on the basis of what they brought to the national economy, as well as the legitimacy they leant to the Panamanian Government. This has been the major political issue since Panama achieved nation status (with US backing, sound familiar?) in 1903. We also covered topics as diverse as the Kuna Indians (“I’m not racist but I can’t stand those people”) and prostitution in Panama City. He was formerly an aircraft mechanic before setting up on his own repairing boats, though apparently he could have been a doctor.       

He returned on Wednesday with the rewired clutch, though when this was installed and we turned on the engine this is when the fun really started. It transpired that while the clutch was now engaging the compressor, the compressor itself was knackered. And so it continued along the whole fridge/freezer system chain until we had replaced more or less all component parts. Furthermore, as we got deeper into it, the AC system (which till now had been working fine) stopped working due to shared electrical connections with the DC system. So two weeks into the work we were a small fortune down on parts and actually in a worse position than before the work began. 

Despite these set-backs Alejandro’s confidence in his ability to complete the work remained a persuasive force. That was until the final freon gas loading phase, when Alejandro’s body language shifted from prancing peacock to that of a person under pressure and at the limit of his own understanding of the matter in question. The freon loading, a dark art of injecting gas into the system under the right pressure and temperature conditions, was not going as expected and he didn’t know why. After struggling on aimlessly for a little too long he finally admitted he needed help and spoke to the manufacturer, who was more than helpful in discussing the issue with him and even agreed to send two technicians who were in the area over to the boat to have a look.

Armed with some larger orifices through which the freon could pass and a dose of reassurance from experts, the system miraculously became fully loaded and the swagger returned. 

This wasn’t quite the end though. Having passed through the Panama Canal and halfway to the Las Perlas Islands the engine driven fridge/freezer ominously stopped working. So with a sinking feeling we headed back to Panama City where Alejandro met us at anchor, late on a Sunday evening. You certainly couldn’t fault his commitment (or was it that the bank transfer for the work hadn’t yet taken place?). The issue was a faulty brand new compressor which Alejandro returned and replaced first thing Monday morning.

From beginning to end it tool a month to compete the work, during which time I met his father (dead ringer for the Spanish golfer Miguel Angel Jimenez) and brother in a professional capacity on the boat, and his wife and daughter in a more social setting. We shared scores of What's App messages and I came to love his use of emojis - bombs and guns among his favourite.

All smiles after a job well done, Bridge of the Americas, Panama City

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